"In our play we reveal what kind of people we are" - Identity building through gamification and digital badges

Abstract

The lifetime of skills and particular knowledge is getting shorter and the new skills for new future positions are being currently obtained as part of lifelong learning process. Even if a part of these processes is actually recognized and fixed in a form of degrees, certificates and references, some of these achievements could become obsolete, some of them not useful in current practice and sometimes even weird. Nevertheless, these (learning) goals were reached; the learning process as such could be a fruitful life-lesson and the key factor for the future success. The huge potential of Mozilla Open Badge Infrastructure (MOBI) – and in general any system that provides digital badges as a kind of incentive or reward – is therefore in collaborative setting that allows comparison with other “players” and mapping the progress "against the others". Without the possibility of comparison, building of e-portfolio becomes much more about storytelling, creating diary or blog and adding a context to selected achievements. Any knowledge provider issuing badges should therefore be able to provide additional information about the complexity of learning environment (incl. statistics), not only short description of criteria as requested in MOBI. This paper further describes opportunities and possible practical usage of gamification and digital badges for stimulation of (lifelong) learning.